“That looks a good kind of sweater,” he said.

“Beautiful piece of work, sir. Mrs. Ferrant is in a class by herself.”

“Mrs. Ferrant?”

“Quite so, sir. You are accommodated there, I believe. The pullover,” Mr. Mercer continued, “would be your size, I’m sure. Would you care to try?”

Ricky did try and not only bought the sweater but also a short blue coat of a nautical cut that went very well with it. He decided to wear his purchases.

He walked along the main street, which stopped abruptly at a flight of steps leading down to the strand. At the foot of these steps, with an easel set up before him, a palette on his arm, and his paint box open at his feet, stood the man he had encountered in the shop.

He had his back toward Ricky and was laying swaths of color across a large canvas. These did not appear to bear any relation to the prospect before him. As Ricky watched, the painter began to superimpose, in heavy black outline, a female nude with minuscule legs, a vast rump, and no head. Having done this he fell back a step or two, paused, and then made a dart at his canvas and slashed down a giant fowl taking a peck at the nude. Leda, Ricky decided, and, therefore, the swan.

He was vividly reminded of the sketches pinned to the drawing-room wall at L’Espérance. He wondered what his mother, whose work was very far from being academic, would have had to say about this picture. He thought that it lacked integrity.

The painter seemed to decide that it was completed. He scraped his palette and returned it and his brushes to the box. He then fished out a packet of cigarettes and a matchbox, turned his back to the sea breeze, and saw Ricky.

For a second or two he seemed to glower menacingly but the growth of facial hair was so luxuriant that it hid all expression. Dark glasses gave him the look of some dubious character on the Côte d’Azur.